{"id":39091,"date":"2022-08-04T17:29:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T23:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/recount-results-are-in-tina-peters-remains-a-loser-in-colorado-secretary-of-states-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:48:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:48:04","slug":"recount-results-are-in-tina-peters-remains-a-loser-in-colorado-secretary-of-states-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/recount-results-are-in-tina-peters-remains-a-loser-in-colorado-secretary-of-states-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Recount results are in: Tina Peters remains a loser in Colorado secretary of state\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Tina
Tina Peters, a candidate for Colorado secretary of state, at the GOP assembly at the Broadmoor World Arena on Saturday in Colorado Springs. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters remains a loser in the Republican primary for Colorado secretary of state.<\/p>\n

The results of a statewide recount of the more than 623,000 votes cast in the contest last month showed Peters still losing by about 90,000 votes or 14 percentage points to former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson.<\/p>\n

Peters picked up 13 more votes through the recount, but so did Anderson. Mike O\u2019Donnell, a third candidate running in the GOP primary, picked up 11 more votes.<\/p>\n

During the recount process, Elbert County Clerk and Recorder Dallas Schroeder, a Republican, notified state elections officials that his office had found 37 unopened ballots in a bin that was being prepared for storage after the primary. The ballots were returned before the June 28 primary, so state elections officials ordered them processed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe votes cast in the races on the ballots have been added to all races covered in the Elbert County primary election,\u201d the Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office said in a written statement. \u201cIt is worth noting that no race was close enough for this number of ballots to change any of the margins of victory for any candidate in Elbert County, or any statewide candidate on Elbert County\u2019s ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schroeder has aligned himself with 2020 election deniers and faced scrutiny from state officials earlier this year for making a digital copy of his county\u2019s election system. He is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed earlier this year against Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, seeking an audit of the state\u2019s election system.<\/p>\n

The majority of Colorado\u2019s counties saw little to no change in their results after the recount.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recounts are complete and confirm once again that Colorado elections are safe and secure,\u201d Griswold said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

The Colorado County Clerks Association earlier on Thursday said Peters had gained just four votes from the recount and that Anderson had gained seven votes. That tally did not appear to factor in the unopened ballots in Elbert County.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recount she asked for showed she lost, just as our post-election audits already held in every county and certified by volunteer citizen canvass boards found,\u201d Matt Crane, who leads the association representing local election leaders, said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Peters, a 2020 election conspiracy theorist, paid more than $250,000 for the recount, the first statewide retabulation of votes in 20 years. She began claiming in the moments after she lost that there was malfeasance in the June 28 primary. She never provided evidence, however.<\/p>\n

Peters cited her win in April at the Republican state assembly, where about 3,500 GOP delegates picked their party\u2019s primary candidates \u2013 a fraction of the number who voted in the June 28 election \u2013 as a reason she should have won the primary. Peters also claimed the results of unscientific straw polls at Republican events indicated she would win the primary.<\/p>\n

Peters saw an influx of campaign contributions after the primary as she questioned the results. She raised more than $500,000 between June 29 and July 27, her largest fundraising haul since she announced her bid to become secretary of state earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In fact, Peters raised more money during the last fundraising period than the four Republican nominees for state-level statewide office combined did during the same period.<\/p>\n

Peters requested that the recount be completed by hand, but state officials said that would be against the rules. The ballots were tabulated in the same manner they were counted the first time \u2013 by machine.<\/p>\n

A second recount was conducted in El Paso County of votes cast in the Republican primary for Senate District 9. Lynda Zamora Wilson paid about $20,000 for the retabulation, which showed her losing to GOP Sen. Paul Lundeen of Monument by one more vote that previously thought.<\/p>\n

Peters was indicted in March on 10 counts, including allegations of attempting to influence a public servant and criminal impersonation. The charges stem from a security breach of her county\u2019s election system last year surrounding a sensitive election software update.<\/p>\n

Anderson will face Griswold in November.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican candidate picked up 13 votes, but so did her opponent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,266,28,2972,1509,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-primary","tag-state-elections","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84216,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091\/revisions\/84216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39091"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}